• unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor, whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.

    To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.

    Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.

    Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.

    • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor

      Correct.

      whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.

      This falls short because it fails to examine how the customer is exploited by spending more than the product’s value for access to the product.

      Resources + Labour = Cost
      Cost + Profit = Price
      ∴ Profit = Exploited value

      To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.

      Correct, capitalists have a deliberately belligerent view of total value assessment because it’s not in their interest to share that value with the worker. And the workers are uneducated and rely on a capitalist system to survive so they simply don’t know better.

      Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.

      Correct.

      Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.

      You don’t need to abolish private property in a socialised system, just private exploitation.

      Personal profit will always exist through the negotiation of one’s value with their customer but the definitive separation between cost, price, and value dissappears because they become the same thing.

      • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        While I am not finding any reason for concern about actual concepts, I feel the terminology you are using generally would be regarded as unconventional. For example, exploitation is often understood as bound to private property, which is any relationship of private control but social utilization for the same resource or asset.

        • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Unfortunately the reason my terminology seems unconventional is because people have moved away from convention.

          exploitation
          /ˌɛksplɔɪˈteɪʃn/
          noun

          1. the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.

          ‘the exploitation of migrant workers’

          synonyms: taking advantage, making use, abuse of, misuse, ill treatment, unfair treatment, bleeding dry, sucking dry, squeezing, wringing, manipulation, cheating, swindling, fleecing, victimization, enslavement, slavery, oppression, imposing on, preying on, playing on

          1. the action of making use of and benefiting from resources.

          ‘the Bronze Age saw exploitation of gold deposits’

          synonyms: utilization, utilizing, use, making use of, putting to use, making the most of, capitalization on, cashing in on, milking

          • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            From a standpoint of economics, though, I feel most would understand exploitation as simply the difference in value for negotiated exchange due to a disparity in power, compared to for a relationship of full parity. In the relations of production, it is generally tied to private property, which produces the class disparity embodied in waged labor.

            • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Sure, but that difference in value for negotiated exchange exists between any two negotiates. Whether it be worker and employer, or individual and customer.

              The big one is between the existant resources and all life on earth, current and future, and that’s an inevitably unsustainable difference in negotiable exchange.

              • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Again, though, exploitation within the wage system is produced by the class antagonisms embodied in private property.

                With private property abolished, and thereby the classes assimilated, everyone will enjoy equity in power.

                In turn, as labor will become free of coercion, it will become free also of exploitation.

                • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Not quite. Think beyond class antagonism as being between the owner and worker class, and retrofit it to consumer and existor classes.

                  As long as resources (existors) are finite exploitation exists because life’s (consumers) consumption limits the potential for other consumer’s consumption. Consumers inevitably must exploit existors for survival, our consumption is temporary and unsustainable, we will consume each other, entropy will claim us all.

                  Yes, I understand that goes a bit out of scope of base ‘economics’, but you’re right in saying that doesn’t mean we can’t reach some semblance of inter-human exploitation free society, though that will be something for future generations to enjoy while it lasts.

                  • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Exploitation is understood as describing effects from social relationships.

                    Other terms, such as utilization and extraction, describe processes of humans interacting with inanimate matter, including ecological resources.